Hetzer

[gradenko2k]

Yeah, because of how they used a constant average rate of production, there tends to be an effect where you rack up a lot of vehicles very early on because the production is already going full-blast from day 1, even if the formations that are assigned to use them do not exist yet.

[kirkgregerson]

ORIGINAL: paullus99

I believe this has been dealt with, to some extent - by explaining that overall production totals were averaged out per month (whereas historically, production figures sometimes varied widely from month to month), so there would be instances where you might have overages sitting in the pools because of this.

lol, umm
I think we know what is causing the pools to get larger.. yeah production. How is this even remotely helpful? Do you understand that what is needed is a solution to the pool problems? An explanation, although useful for those that don't know what is going on, is no closer to explain how silly it is for large pools of axis tanks and assault guns to accumulate and not get utilized. I have had this scenario in every game I've played as axis and I keeping thinking somebody sensible with the development of the game will put out a patch to fix this problem. Wishful thinking on my part, at best.

Just like jazardos, I'm very disappointed this problem has gone on for so long.

[KenchiSulla]

At least several independent battalions used Hetzers in the east in 1944. My sources are sketchy but the way it is now (independent battalions all upgrading to Heavy Tank destroyers) is not correct.

Some should use regular tank destroyers (Jagdpanzer IV and Hetzers)..

[vaned74]

Actually a simple solution to the whole thing that probably wouldn't require much new coding would be to allow players to set an "auto/manual" upgrade flag on ground units much like is set on air units. In this way, if a player is doing better than history ie for the Axis, he doesn't have to see his divisions or battalions upgrade to say the 45 panzer division with 45 tanks. Same thing would be true in the event of equipment management for the Jpz battalions. Right now, in early 44, all my Jpz battalions are heavy TD TOE; pretty much useless given how few heavy TDs are available, especially with production of Jagdpanther and Nashorn always rounding down by factory for west front withdrawals (ie Nashorn factory 3 only produces 1, every turn, no randomness and Jagdpanther of 2 factories of 3 produces only 2 per week, never a change).

[gradenko2k]

If you allow the Axis player to create his own SUs, or to manually designate AFV models to be used, the interaction with the averaged production run could very well create a situation where the Axis player can start drawing upon his pools and using his hardware much earlier than is historical. One example would be Tiger tanks - they start production and thus accumulate in the pool long before any units show up that are designated to use them. That kind of effect might be as undesirable as the current state of affairs.

Of course, you could then introduce a sub-rule that you can't create any Tiger-using SUs or designate existing SUs to use Tigers before an official Tiger-using SU shows up according to the historical schedule, and so on for every other piece of hardware, but that adds yet another layer of complexity to the system.

[2ndACR]

Here you have the age old simulation versus history argument. This has been in every WW2 game I can think of.

Fixed withdrawls, fixed upgrade paths etc.

I would love to have the freedom to choose which of my div withdraw. The 10th Panzer may have withdrawn in real life for rebuild, but in my game it might be my strongest Div or the one holding a critical junction. I would prefer to have "you must withdraw a Panzer Div on turn 11" screen. If you miss the date, due to combat etc, it will cost you 100 AP's per turn until withdraw occurs.

Upgrade paths, would love to have them opened up. I can see some abuse happening though. But make them slot specific to avoid. Heavy tank can tank heavy or lower. That way we don't have Uber div with 300 Tigers. Though I would love that. LOL. Medium can take med or light. Light only light. But there has to be a way so that the heavy tank slot I downgraded to Med due to lack of tanks can go back to heavy when I have them.

Independent tank BN's can take any tank, Stug limited to Stug's and assault guns.

But keep the use dates as a break on when a unit can use the vehicle.

And I really hate the forced TOE upgrades in size. I should be able to pick and choose. So that depending on what is happening, I can try to keep every unit at 1942 sizes or keep part of my forces at 1942 sizes.

These type of choices are the ones that would make the game much better overall. The Russian can tailor make his entire army, but the German is stuck with history.

Can't be too hard, if they could introduce PDU into WITP in a patch, it could be done here. PDU is player defined upgrades for those who do not know.

[TAIL_GUNNER]

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR

Here you have the age old simulation versus history argument. This has been in every WW2 game I can think of.

Fixed withdrawls, fixed upgrade paths etc.

I would love to have the freedom to choose which of my div withdraw. The 10th Panzer may have withdrawn in real life for rebuild, but in my game it might be my strongest Div or the one holding a critical junction. I would prefer to have "you must withdraw a Panzer Div on turn 11" screen. If you miss the date, due to combat etc, it will cost you 100 AP's per turn until withdraw occurs.

Upgrade paths, would love to have them opened up. I can see some abuse happening though. But make them slot specific to avoid. Heavy tank can tank heavy or lower. That way we don't have Uber div with 300 Tigers. Though I would love that. LOL. Medium can take med or light. Light only light. But there has to be a way so that the heavy tank slot I downgraded to Med due to lack of tanks can go back to heavy when I have them.

Independent tank BN's can take any tank, Stug limited to Stug's and assault guns.

But keep the use dates as a break on when a unit can use the vehicle.

And I really hate the forced TOE upgrades in size. I should be able to pick and choose. So that depending on what is happening, I can try to keep every unit at 1942 sizes or keep part of my forces at 1942 sizes.

These type of choices are the ones that would make the game much better overall. The Russian can tailor make his entire army, but the German is stuck with history.

Can't be too hard, if they could introduce PDU into WITP in a patch, it could be done here. PDU is player defined upgrades for those who do not know.

It could be modded in...for SUs anyway.

It would not be too hard to add a slew of empty but varied SU reinforcements per turn. These would all go to OKH of course, and then the player could choose which to keep and which to disband.

It does however, add another layer of micromanagement...[:o]

[2ndACR]

Only problem with that is it is really really hard to find someone to play a modded scenario. And then you have us people who have no modding time or shall I say ability.

I will admit that I am one of those people who hates hard coded choices like the above or the forced to do something because of history. But I really hate having to say a prayer or sacrifice a kid to the gods hoping my panzer div refits and fills out it's TOE with the best goodies available. But when I look at my pools and see several hundred armored vehicles sitting there while my units are sucking air it sends me into a fit. Or see a couple hundred really good armored vehicles in my pool but only a couple units can use them while the rest suck air for lack of "tanks".

[alfonso]

ORIGINAL: jzardos

What is really starting to upset me is the developers have shy'd away from being accountable for this possibility of large pools of very important equipment sitting in these abstract pools. This is a game breaker in some cases for the German player more so for the Soviet.  It's ridiculous that this type of situation could have ever resulted after play testing?  Did not one tester stand up and say 'This is nuts, why do I have 200 panthers and 100 tigers sitting in pools not getting used??'  (replace panthers and tigers with assault guns types if you so choose).

Please just give me one good reason why this was not uncovered and dealt with?  It's been 1 yr since the release and there have been many many posts about this issue and yet have seen nothing to deal or back up the developers decisions on this matter.

[:(][&:][:(][&:]


Just give the Axis player the ability to utilize their production pools? It's a game and this aspect should not be deprived from the Axis player. Insanity to argue against this point from a purely historical reference point.

I think Paulus and Gradenko have explained it, but I can show you an example of how I understand their explanation.

If you look at this http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger1.htm you will see that between April 1942 and August 1944 1349 Tigers were produced, i.e aprox 45 per month. Therefore the game during the first 10 months would give you 450 Tigers (corrected by the proportion that is not sent to the East Front, lets say 300 Tigers for the East Front). But in the real war, after 10 months only about 100 Tigers were made. In January 1943 there were only a few units equipped with Tigers, so most probably in the game you will have a surplus of Tigers, but they are representing, let`s say, “tanks that have not been produced yet”. There is no problem to fix, it is only a idealized/simplified figure to avoid the unnecessary coding of monthly production figures. If you are getting nervous about your unused Tigers, look at the webpage I mentioned to calm you down each time. Your unused Tigers probably do not exist yet.

I concede that the way the game is designed now might not allow you to reserve the use of all the Tigers you are allotted (let’s say 1000) for a last ditch defence of Germany in 1944-45, because perhaps there are not enough units to deploy 1000 Tigers simultaneously. I do not know if that is what upsets you.

[Q-Ball]

alfonso's explanation is a good one; the production system is abstracted. You can't form extra Tiger Battalions from unused pool, not because the German historically had Tigers sitting around, but because they just weren't there.

Back to the Hetzer: If someone can find a reliable source that the Hetzer was deployed to STUG units, or other units, besides the TOE in the game, then we should specify in this post, and I bet it will be researched and corrected in time.

[RCHarmon]

How can the game have the level of detail that it has and those numbers may or may not be arbitrary?  Do those numbers mean something or not?  

[alfonso]

ORIGINAL: RCH

How can the game have the level of detail that it has and those numbers may or may not be arbitrary?  Do those numbers mean something or not?  

The total numbers are not arbitrary. In this case historicity is controlled by total production and by OOB, not by monthly out-put.

[alfonso]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Back to the Hetzer: If someone can find a reliable source that the Hetzer was deployed to STUG units, or other units, besides the TOE in the game, then we should specify in this post, and I bet it will be researched and corrected in time.

I have found this
http://www.pegatiros.com/reportajes/veh ... /index.htm

Look at the bottom of the page.

Maybe this makes sense for TOE freak...errr, experts...(I can help with the Spanish[:)]...)

It seems as if the Hetzer was being delivered to PanzerJager units till the end of the war. I do not know if it is possible in the game to have mixed PanzerJager Battalions (Heavy/Light), with some companies being equipped with Hetzers

[heliodorus04]

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR

Here you have the age old simulation versus history argument. This has been in every WW2 game I can think of.

Fixed withdrawls, fixed upgrade paths etc.

I would love to have the freedom to choose which of my div withdraw. The 10th Panzer may have withdrawn in real life for rebuild, but in my game it might be my strongest Div or the one holding a critical junction.

This is as poignantly noted in strategic terms as I could hope to tell it.
THIS is a key part of the many-faceted "Germany gets screwed because it's Germany" aspect that goes so oft-unnoticed or unremarked upon.

Flavius once noted somewhere to skip the 42a and 42b Rifle Corps (forgive me if it was 43, or mech or tank or cav or some such, but it was Flavius sharing efficiency pointers with a new Soviet player). The notion was that you're better off keeping your divisions as is until the 42c corps comes on line later in the year, because it's far more effective in the field.

Well, Germany doesn't get that benefit, because it's Germany, and it is sunk into the stovepipe TOE changes. Germany doesn't even have the OPTION to improve over history here.

To reiterate a point I want all German-playing players to understand, Germans pay at a rough minimum, 350% (three-hundred-fifty-percent) to 700% (seven-hundred percent) the AP cost (averaged) to move a division to a new HQ than does Soviet. The cost for moving a Soviet combat corps is 10-15 times as much as a Soviet division (converting to German perspective, corps cost about 75% to 150% more to re-assign as German divisions cost).

So where historically, the Soviets were fielding less effective corps because they hadn't realized it could be improved on yet (or they had no ability to improve on it). The real Soviet army was paying 3-5 times as much 'theoretical AP' (since there was no such currency in the real war) to move combat corps around (compared to the 3 component divisions/brigades). Soviet PLAYERS know to wait for the 42c Corps coming on line; this conversion will save them in combat effectiveness and a veritable fortune over what their historic predecessors would have paid in AP.

Here we have a simple TOE change mechanic that is, when viewed from German perspective, punishing you twice simply for being German. Soviets gain effectiveness by skipping bad TOEs, and the resultant cost savings benefits their army in AP accumulations as well.

Now, just the related note on withdrawing divisions: As 2nd ACR notes, maybe 10th Panzer is the unit in position to attack Moscow; maybe it's defied the odds and risen from 70 morale to 86, god forbid. If it's on the withdrawl schedule, there is no room to debate. Soviets, meanwhile, have the luxury of knowing how to qualify a unit for guard status, and can withdraw qualifying units from the line, pay the far cheaper cost to re-assign to a reserve area HQ (where they can go on refit and gain morale up to about 60, which I'm not going into here...) to wait until they convert to guard.

German players don't even have the OPTION of selecting a unit to withdraw themselves; even if the paremeters were restrictive (must be morale 80+, TOE 90+, etc.) it would be preferable to the current system.

Regardless of the problems with the current system favoring the attack, there are competitive imbalances in game mechanics that are only going to get worse once Soviet players know fully how to exploit them, because there are no counters to gameplay constraint.

This is well before we factor in the fact that the Soviets can create units and the German cannot.

[2ndACR]

Well said.

I do not want to create new units per se. I would just love to have options. Let me choose what div to withdraw, just tell me 2-3 turns in advance what needs to be withdrawn. IE Turn 22 you must withdraw 1 SS Motorized Div, 1 Infantry Div. But let me choose which ones that go bye bye. If the situation is critical, let me pay a 100 AP cost per turn to keep the said units. Of course this could easily snowball and force me to withdraw 4-5 units all at once because I sucked my AP pool dry.

Let me choose to upgrade/downgrade/manually select my armor upgrades......within reason stated above.

Don't punish me with historical TOE downgrades. I know someone was working on a TOE neutral mod after release. Which would be playable if you ask me. But I lost track of it and don't know if it ever got finished.

My biggest gripes are seeing a couple hundred tanks/stugs sitting in the pools and unable to use them. Just give us the PDU option and I could live with that. Next would be the TOE downgrades over time.

WITP had withdraw dates too, but you pay a steep price keeping said ships longer than you should.

The war gaming gods are tired of hearing me beg and I am running out of kids to sacrifice.

[vaned74]

In reply to the comments about production being more of an average over time (but totals to historical levels), ie the tanks are actually arriving earlier in quantity than in real life.

Agreed. This is true as best I can tell from looking at logged Hetzer deliveries someone posted earlier. However, two points need to be made:

1) in the case of the Hetzer, the TOEs of the JPz battalions all upgrading to Heavy TD only types is simply a mistake and historically inaccurate. Hetzers were clearly delivered in 44 to independent JPz battalions.

2) if we take production as an average, ie typically arriving earlier in the pool than units received vehicles(planes), then we have an unbalancing game mechanic in that the Soviet side can create new units to consume the early production and the Germans cannot react.

Simply said, allowing one to select TOE upgrades off/on via a flag (as can be done for aircraft models) would be the easiest fix.

[vaned74]

And I would say, if the German player reaches 45 in reasonable shape, why would he opt to upgrade to the historical upgrade of the Panzer division to 45 TOE? This was a wartime expedient brought on by shortages of all manner of mechanized equipment. If the German is not experiencing this, why should the Wermacht be neutered?

[Wild]

Wow!! I just read this thread and it deals with a lot of the issues that have stopped me from playing the game.

Vanned74,Helio,jzardos,2ndACR and others, you guys have it exactly right!! I strongly support your ideas. It seems such a shame that these issues have not even been addressed by the devs.

I have always supported 2by3 to the extreme but i am extremely disappointed that crucial and in my opinion game destroying factors have not been addressed in the rush to move on to WitW.

2by3,please at least attempt to fix these production issues. How can i go on to support the rest of your development line when issues such as these are not even responded to by the devs? Right now i have gone back to playing my favorite game War in Russia,I would like to move forward but it seems that concerns fundamental to me and others are not being taken seriously.

Please forgive the tone of my post but it reflects (maybe unfairly) my huge expectations that have not been lived up too. Please make the Germans fun to play like WiR.

[Encircled]

They are fun to play

[Cavalry Corp]

Seems to me its like WITP / AE - what was learned in WITP made AE so good. So maybe WITW engine etc which will have to be pretty good will be retro fitted to this ( unlike AE - WITP).

I for one cannot get my head round no replay and I think that will be a breaker if you want the whole of Europe. No replay favours the attacker

Cav